‘He wasn’t a stranger Mum, I did know him.’
‘Well, either way, I bet she can’t have sex with a strange man and then go with her mum to the STD clinic, can she? Can she? No. See, it’s not always easier, now eat your berries.’
‘I don’t like berries.’
‘They are good for you, they will clean up your PH balances. I bet Beyoncé eats her berries, that’s why Beyoncé never gets thrush. Come on, drink up your tea, let’s go for a swim.’
Healing and chilling with my mum and family for the rest of Christmas was amazing. I slowly started feeling happier and lighter and more positive. Until I caught the final episode of Sons of Anarchy and then I was sad again. But apart from that, my brothers were good, my sister was good. I liked being around that energy. Seeing my family happy. No one was arguing, no one had any fights, no one had any drama and that was nice. It felt nourishing.
Sarah my director helped me find an editor and he let me pay him in instalments. My show was ready, my website was up and running and I sent out the link to every one of my pre-orders. The response was fantastic. The quality of the show looked fantastic. My fans were downloading my show and sharing the link with their friends.
I kept getting requests for hard-copy DVDS as well as downloads, so I got some made and me and my mum posted them out. I sold enough to pay back Darshan, my editor and Rosie my producer. I broke even; my mum suggested I make some more ‘Mind the Gap’ knickers, so we did that too. We had a little factory thing going on the living-room floor. DVDs and knickers next to envelopes and address labels. Me and my mum, doing it together. Our own little business. I liked it.
My mum is my Wonder Woman. Give women more power, give women more opportunities, give women more control. Because the one in my life can kinda fix everything.
29
PINK LEMONADE
So it’s 2016 and this is where we are at.
I am feeling good. I haven’t got an agent in the UK at the moment and am taking care of myself. I was really sad to leave Debi, I love Debi, she is amazing. I don’t know if it was the right move or not, but I can’t have been much fun to work with. I was stressed and resentful, impatient at best. At least now I can have some time out and readdress what is best for me to do next. A chance for me to sort out what I want. I think I just want one person who can help me take care of everything, someone who has the time to help me manage a career plan. For now, that person is me.
I went away on a retreat, turned off my laptop and phone and did a lot of crying. Cried about leaving Debi, cried about the uncertainty in my career, cried about my father, occasionally I’ll think about him and feel really sad and miss him. I think that’s probably quite normal, most children want to love their parents and feel loved by them, so it’s hard when something interrupts that. But I came away from the retreat feeling totally cleansed, refreshed, new even. Like I had allowed myself to take time out and get nourished.
The past can and will affect you; it will keep biting you in the arse. And maybe rather than avoiding it or pushing it down, ask it what it wants. So that’s what I started doing, listening to what I want and to what I need. What do I need to be OK? Whatever it is, however small, listen to it. I spent New Year’s Eve with Pas, we had a ball and I got recognised twice! I wonder if that’s an omen for the year ahead. I reckon it should be.
I am not waiting on any guy. I know I should probably go on Tinder, but feigning interest is hard. All my male comedian friends get laid all the time, no problem.
I wish it worked the other way around, but if anything, it’s like the opposite. I go on Tinder and I gotta laugh along with these amateurs. We all just want sex, mate, but if I’ve done my bit and pretended to find you interesting, the least you can do is act as if you wanna meet for coffee first.
I swear if I was a man I would get so much sex from loads of different women. I would be so nice to them and understanding and thoughtful. They would feel amazing and be like ‘Oh my gosh, thank you so much’ afterwards and I would be like ‘You are very welcome!’ Wow, what a guy.
So for now, no guy on the scene and I like it. I really want to learn what it would be like if I just fell in love with myself first. That is difficult to even write down. This notion of loving yourself. I am so quick to dismiss it as selfish, or stupid or pointless. I need to stop doing that, because my version of love hasn’t been working.
Stop looking at other people’s lives through an Instagram filter. What other people have is not necessarily what I want; unless those people are Carrie and Big from Sex and the City, I am someone who is looking for love, real love, ridiculous, all-consuming, cannot-live-without-the-other-person kind of love. That’s what I want. I want the kind of love where I am a whole woman and he is a whole man, where we are individually complete but we choose to lie next to each other because we want to. The kind where he is free to go and cheat and so am I, but you know what? We don’t, because both of us prefer what we have with each other. Idealistic or not, I want a soulmate, a playmate, a sex mate. I want someone to fuck on every level and for us to get lost in each other’s worlds. But safely, from the comfort of my own sense of self. That’s what I want to take time out for now. That’s what I want to work on.
Sure, someone will pay me some attention and be nice to me, then ignore me, and it will all go out of the window and catnip here I come. But for now, I want to get good at being present with just me.
So it’s coming up to Valentine’s Day again and I get a message from my old promoter: Luisa, don’t forget we pencilled in the Forum for you at Kentish Town, you might want to cancel it.
It’s 800 capacity seated. I asked them to pencil it in the year before and now things have changed. It would cost £6,000 to hire just for one night. But I don’t want to cancel it. There’s no bad blood with my promoter; they’re happy for me to do my own thing, and now here I am staring at this massive venue. Valentine’s is my gig. It has become like tradition. I don’t want to not do a show on Valentine’s Day, but come on, this is ridiculous. £6,000 just to hire?
For the last three years Valentine’s Day has been my favourite show. It’s one of the only ones that reminds me of my early days in Edinburgh. Rushing across a bridge to get to the stage in time to introduce my mate. Collecting donations at the door. OK, so I’m not running across a bridge or collecting money, but I feel that same level of excitement, of achievement, that same desire to make it really special because my audience is really special. I mean sure, I feel like that about every show. But on Valentine’s, the day of the year when single women usually feel crap, I want to give them something to celebrate.
So what do I do? Without the promoter covering the costs, it would mean somehow fronting it all myself. How can I do that with the classic £800 in my bank? Well, before I say no and let myself down with reality, I may as well speak to the venue. It would be rude not to.
So I do. Venue hire £6k. PR £900. Advertising £2k minimum. Then there is insurance, musical licensing, DJ, staff, decorations. I am now looking at a budget of £10,600. And that is with minimum costs. I make a mental list.
Cons:
Huge financial risk.
No safety of agent or promoter.
Even if it sells I will only just break even. So essentially putting in a lot of work to pay for services.
Pros:
An epic night of magnificent proportions that my audience will love and remember.
I call my mum. ‘Mum, I don’t know what to do, what shall I do?’ ‘Luisa! What would Beyoncé do?’
I went to the bank of stepdad Johnny with a business proposal. He lent me £10,000 on the understanding that I would pay it back by the end of March. Fuck it, you got to speculate to accumulate, right?
The Valentine’s party was on!
I hired Eve, my favourite tech from Soho Theatre, and asked my boy Olly, my Musical Bingo partner in crime, to DJ. He was up for it; we were going to make this epic.
It’s one night only, it has to
be for everyone, I wanted single women, couples to come and have an epic night out. I had done ‘Am I Right’ recently with the download record so what better time to bring back, for one night only, my original debut show ‘What Would Beyoncé Do?!’ and follow it with RnB, ’90s garage, ’80s power ballads and the odd ‘Say Yes’ by Michelle Williams? Perfect! Pas said she would help out on the night and my flatmates were up for decorating the venue with me! I knew I would be comfortable with this team around me. I wanted this night to be magnificent.
I looked at YouTube tutorials on Photoshop and made up some quick memes for social media. The party was going to be on 13 February, which was a Saturday. That was perfect, because it meant I could attract couples as well as singles – people could still do their romantic thing on the Sunday and I could have a full house. This was my USP: a Valentine’s party that appealed to both single women and couples.
I got my mate Darshan, who’d built my website, to do a mail-out to anyone who had shown interest in the site. One of the guys who worked for Darshan helped design a new poster. I got my live agent Charlotte on board to help with the venue-set-up admin side. She put me in touch with an advertising company and I paid £1,500 for tube adverts at Kentish Town station. I was so happy when I saw my poster coming up the escalator!
I got Katie Phillips, my old PR team, to help out, they started sending mail-outs to press. I tweeted to party companies, props companies, photo companies, cocktail companies, gyms, Virgin Holidays, anyone I could think of. I got in touch with all the London magazines and journalists, who were really helpful. My PR got me a gig at a Stylist magazine exhibition event. After I’d done my spot, I did a shout-out about my show and offered the audience first dibs on front-row tickets. At the exhibition there were loads of really cool brands, so I tried to utilise my social media following. I saw this gorgeous pink faux-fur coat from River Island hanging on a press rack. I tried it on and took a picture of me wearing it, then tagged the shop saying I love your coat River Island, would love your support #WhatWouldBeyonceDo?!! The picture got over 2k likes, and a reply from River Island: Hi Luisa, here is a link to buy the coat on the website. Thank you, RI team.
FFS, this shit would never happen to Beyoncé.
Most of the companies I contacted ignored me, but I did get a response from a company called LookLook, who specialised in photo machines for events. They were amazing and donated a GIF machine, which meant my audience could have their photo taken and the machine would turn it into a GIF, so that every time someone shared their picture it had all my social media handles on it.
A company called Tommy Popcorn responded to Charlotte and offered free popcorn. Free popcorn! We arrived at the venue and 20 boxes full of the stuff were waiting for us! My audience loved it!
I went a little bit crazy on a party website and ordered 100 helium balloons plus hearts and banners, but me, Pas and my flatmate Kat had fun trying to blow them all up. I wanted it to feel like a school prom. I found a kissing booth. It cost £150. Fuck it, if you can’t have a kissing booth on Valentine’s Day, when can you? Delivery was another £150. Fuck it, I have a loan, it’s all relative and it will all be worth it. Altogether now . . . ‘You have to speculate to accumulate.’
Opposite the Forum there is a cocktail bar that used to be a public toilet. It’s now a swanky bar (only in London). It’s actually really cool and called Ladies and Gents. Every night they have this big cinema-style sign lit up outside with jokes and puns on cocktails. I decided to email the manager and ask if he would consider putting my show details on the sign. In exchange I would plug his bar as the place to go for pre-show and after-show cocktails. He did it, he didn’t mind! I had #WhatWouldBeyonceDo?! At The Forum This Sat lit up for three days.
Remember how I loved the tuck shop at school? What better place to bring the tuck shop back than at your own party. I ordered £200-worth of penny sweets and spent the night before making up bags for £1. I couldn’t get any pink lemonade so pick and mix would have to do. There wasn’t going to be any profit on them, but I would cover my costs and I figured it would be a nice touch for the audience. It took me and Kat ages to pack them up, but we had so much fun dancing around, drinking Prosecco. My other flatmate Sophie helped by making signs for the tuck shop. It was all coming together. Some of the sweet bags may have had more flying saucers in them than others; I wanted people to feel spoilt. Other bags may have had more turtles, I’m very sorry about that team, my generous maths on flying saucers may have backfired.
To help me bring in some actual money, I decided to make up some merchandise. I had never done it before because I didn’t want to upset Beyoncé by using her name on things and I preferred to concentrate on the shows. However, for this one-off, I designed some T-shirts and jumpers with my show title on and got them made up.
If I was lucky, I could break even. I was lucky. Valentine’s Day 2016 was by far one of the most epic nights of my entire career. I had 800 people; the venue was packed. Olly was on form, Pas was gorgeous, the event was a huge success. The crowd went crazy for the show, I was so worried I wouldn’t be able to deliver it as well as I wanted because of all the stress of organising. But the audience’s love and laughter just made the show fly. It was perfect!
We all danced until one in the morning. I broke even from the ticket sales, and I felt proud, proud that this event was mine. Proud that I had pulled it off. Proud that no one else had a handle on it, I’d controlled all of it, and as bad as that sounds, I loved it. I loved having my team of friends helping me. I loved every aspect of it, and it meant that when I pulled the gig off, I could enjoy all the sense of satisfaction and happiness that came with it. This was a beautiful gig and for once, Valentine’s wasn’t spoiled by a boy. I was there with some of my best friends and 800 beautiful audience members. We danced until the cows came home.
The next day, as I came back to the venue to collect my kissing booth, I was a hot, sweaty mess. The Kerrang! tour was happening and their crew was arriving. As I walked past them carrying my stuff and saw the team of about 20 staff all kitted out in Kerrang! lanyards setting up the stage. I felt an enormous sense of pride. The day before I’d had my crew in here setting up my stage, only my crew were my friends. Beyoncé probably wouldn’t have to carry her own kissing booth the night after a show, but I didn’t mind. I liked carrying my own kissing booth. Besides, it’s now in my mum’s garage waiting for when I can buy my own flat and put it in the bathroom. Or in the kitchen, next to my Smeg.
I liked that I could put on an event and create a working world where I just got to play, like I was showing off in front of my grandma reciting Sister Act. I liked that my mum taught me to work for things, that sometimes you have to go to the garden and look for a stick to break up poo. I liked that Salford taught me that no one is going to give it to you. The world owes you nothing. You owe your gift to the world. I might not know yet where I am going in life, I might not have my own home, I might not have a boyfriend, I might still have cling film on my windows, and I might only have earned £300 from a gig that generated nearly £12,000, but when I look back on my life, my most precious memories have been those shows. Valentine’s Day was beautiful and that memory is mine for keeps.
I need to work smarter at my career, and I feel like I have such a long way to go, but I hope and think I will always find comedy, because from every situation or emotion, comedy saves me. I will always have that. But balance and rest are just as important as working. Taking time out is good.
This year I have set some intentions. I want to be able to buy my own home one day; I want to have a baby and meet someone nice and hopefully get married. I want my kids to see ‘love Mum and Dad’ on their birthday cards. I want to look after my mum and buy her a new kitchen. And if I want these things then I need to allow myself to become the woman I am meant to be.
If I had listened to caution, and advice, and fear, I never would have experienced the sense of achievement or the highs that I have. When people tell you tha
t you can’t do something, it’s usually coming from their own sense of fear. Most people are scared. And that’s OK. Life is scary, but you are a goddess. A very capable goddess. With or without crying.
There is no greater feeling than listening to your heart and following your instinct and chasing your dreams. Because I swear down, no matter what happens, no matter how hard it is, when you allow yourself to live authentically, to truly listen to and follow your heart’s goal, life falls into place. So go get ’em bitches, I cannot wait to see what we become.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank all the men in my life, the plot points of my story; I wish you a lifetime of love and happiness. Thank you for helping me grow.
I want to thank the women in my life who have carried me, shaped me, loved me, listened to me, inspired me, supported me, wiped away my tears, held my hand and continue to make me absolutely howl with laughter.
Big love to Delia, the most talented person I know, thank you for your amazing illustrations. Katerina Vranarama for being such a generous goddess of a woman. Pasqualey, my date for all my Valentine’s Days and adventures. Zoe, wifey and comedy sister from Lord knows who.
Della, angel of my life, one of the kindest people I know. Wendy, for all the teens, twenties and ages to come! Smirnoff Ices, jelly-leg dancing and green tea. Ray Ray for being so kind and loving and keeping sand out of my mouth when I was high on Valium and wanted to be a mermaid. Lau Lau for awesome boy analogies and wise words. Am I factually correct in my assumptions?! #GoldenSuitcase. To Ellie T for being an absolute legend. Sajeela for being my comedy mamma. Suzi for the best Old Skool Exhibit days. PS FYI.
Vicci promo 4 life.
Flat party: Kat for actively encouraging my ‘go big or stay at home and cry’ ideas. Sophie for your endless hair-braiding skills. And Birdy for being such a kind, sweet soul.
What Would Beyoncé Do?! Page 26